Planning Ahead
by Verboten Byacolate
Summary: Dear Stupid Momo: Someday when you're fully healed, and I've grown taller, and we're older and wiser, I'll tell you. Yes. Someday. HitsuHina
1. March 17, journal entry

**Journal.  
Captain's 2nd year.  
March 17.**

_Dear Stupid Momo,_

_Someday when you're fully healed, and I've grown taller, and we're older and wiser, I'll tell you. Someday, when I can say something other than "Bed-wetter" when I become hopelessly tongue-tied in your presence, I'll tell you. Someday, when the timing is perfect, about four years from now, on a day of nothing but snow, the words will be rehearsed just right, and you will be impressed. You may even kiss me. _

_Someday. Someday when we are not so naive. Someday when the courage carved into my eyes will reach my heart. _

_Yes. Someday._

- o -

He returns to Soul Society from the Living World in the spring. Her favorite season. The time of warmth that he so dreads. She doesn't seem to be waiting, yet there is a certain patient stillness in her form, a relieved softening in her eyes when he walks through the door. Her body may have healed, but it seemed that the wound in her heart remained open, for her smile was sad, if not completely sincere.

He stands in the doorway, knowing only how to look. She watches him watch her, and he wonders if there was a moment when he wasn't missing her. It hits him, and the very weight is staggering.

Hitsugaya Toshiro had longed for Hinamori Momo.

Her thin lips part and form shapes. Somehow he knows it is his name even though he has miraculously lost the ability to hear, the soft syllables lost to the roaring in his head. Not only that, but it seemed as if the sense of time itself had flown out the window with his hearing.

Hitsugaya Toshiro had felt withdrawl from Hinamori Momo.

With the slow, unsteady steps of a drunkard (_not like him at all, lacking his elegant poise and dignity, so where, where had it gone?_) he nears her bed. Somehow, even with his lack of focus, oceanic eyes take note of her hair. It is tied as it was before she became a shinigami. Pigtails at both sides of her skull trail down her pillow, and take him back to the time where it was just them. Before he was captain. Before he realised that trepidation came with affection.

Hitsugaya Toshiro had needed Hinamori Momo.

Dark, silky fabric and its tendancy to become wrinkled was disregarded by the sudden, unescapable desire to hold this girl. Familiar, nostalgic brown eyes widened, but he could only see them for a second in his quickness to envelop her tightly in his arms. If it had been a mere month ago, he would have reopened wounds for the ferocity of his embrace.

"Stupid bed-wetter Momo," he mumbled into her thin, white fabric-covered shoulder. "Why did you let me leave while worrying so much?"

"Would you..." She swallowed. He could feel her hearbeat against his body. _What a beautiful feeling_. "Would you have stayed if I'd told you to?"

"I'd be by your side forever. You know that... dummy."

He could still become a child with her. Nothing had changed with the metamorphosis of everything.

'Someday' wasn't as he'd imagined. It wasn't even close. But then... maybe 'someday' was something entirely different.

Yes.

Dark hair. Brown eyes. Momo.

This wasn't 'someday.'

This was home.


	2. April 2, diary entry

**Diary!  
Momo, 5th year Shinigami!  
April 2**

_Dear Whitey-chan,_

_(Well, maybe you're not Hitsugaya-kun, Diary-san, but you probably won't mind if I pretend that you are from time to time, right? Right!)_

_It's been half a year since Renji and I went to train in the World of the Living. The Kurosaki had volunteered so kindly to be our hosts, since Uruhara had no room. Half a year-- definitely enough time for you to have a growth spurt. But I bet you haven't had one. But that's okay, Whitey-chan; I like you short. Because you're so CUTE! _

_Only teasing! I think I missed you, Whitey. Everytime Kuchiki-san made me eat "ice cream" I thought of you. The same when I went grocery shopping with Kurosaki-san's little sister, Yuzu. There were so many watermelons in the summer! You should have seen it! I bought one and sliced it up, but it just wasn't the same. I even considered having Abarai-kun spit the seeds at me, but that might have made me even more homesick._

_You should have come, and if not for your captain-ly duties, I would have invited you for sure. I would have had more fun with you there, I think. Maybe I'm a masochist, but being picked on by you is actually kind of nice. I can tell that you care when you tease me. Can you see the same when I tease back?_

_I'm tired of writing. I want to see you. I'm sure you'll be with boisterous Matsumoto, so you won't be too hard to spot._

_Yours,  
__Momo_

- o -

"Have you improved, Hinamori?"

She has to look up to meet him eye-for-eye in conversation, and secretly, she likes it. He's not so short, and his voice isn't so high, but it is still easy to tease him.

"Of course! Training was amazing, Shiro-chan! Hollows are a lot more helpful than we make them out to be, you know. Once, I even got _injured_!" She grins widely. "It's sort of nice to know that I have someone _big_ like Abarai-kun to be protective of me, you know? I think I may have been Kuchiki-san's replacement for the time. You see, it was the first month, and the hollow was smaller than normal, so we underestimated it. I was distracted by one of those large sky balloon thingies (mind you, Shiro-chan, I was still getting used to the Living World, so it was easy to have your attention wander), and then, out of no where, BLOOD starts pouring out of my shoulder! The thing had a _huuuge_ tail! And then, there was a big SLASH, and the tail was cut in half by Abarai-kun, and then after he purified it, he took me to Kurosaki-san, and he even helped bandage me! Poor Renji was so bashful. You'd think he never saw--"

Shiro-chan was still Shiro-chan. Quick to irritate. Easy to tease. Prone to jealousy.

"Do you ever stop talking?" he scowled, looking away. His voice was deeper now. According to Kurosaki Karin, some teenage boys matured later or quicker than others. She was just a bit disappointed that she'd missed six months worth of opportunity to make fun of him for the growth. Now, it wasn't just his superior attitude. Deep voice; masculine features; striking white hair, in contrast to sharp, breathtaking sea-green eyes. Hitsugaya was (in Yuzu's words, she swore, not her own) a _hunk_.

"Hey, don't be so mean! I haven't seen you in forever! Where's my welcome?"

He looks back down at her, surrounded by blossoms from the leaves of the trees that surround the shack where they had met as children. He hadn't been with Matsumoto. For some reason, he'd felt like coming to this place-- it was mere coincidence that she'd given up looking for him in the village and met him here instead.

"Tch." On the porch was... a watermelon? (_But of course._)

"Tch? What kind of welcome is-"

"Good to have you back, Hinamori."

Stopped in her tracks, Momo smiled to herself.

"It's been too long, Shiro-chan."

- fin -

**It's easier to show the passage of time when they go to the Human World. 'Tis my only excuse.  
-Bya  
Edit: WAHAHA!! I wrote "Hatsumoto" instead of "Matsumoto" TWICE!! XD I happen to be quite challenged in the head. Forgive me, if you can.**


End file.
